Building a Pluriverse of Nursologies: A paradigm for decolonial theory and knowledge development in nursing

Abstract

The imperative to decolonise health disciplines underscores the need for a critical examination of the coloniality of nursing knowledge development. Decolonising nursing requires epistemic resistance aimed at exposing and dismantling epistemological hierarchies that marginalise indigenous knowledges. This paper introduces the ‘Pluriverse of Nursologies’ as paradigm to guide decolonial theorising in nursing. Through a four‐part exploration, I first elucidate the coloniality embedded in mainstream nursing knowledge. Next, I offer a decolonial critique of Fawcett's nursing metaparadigm as an exemplar of pyramidal epistemology. I then discuss pluriversality as an approach to decolonising nursing knowledge. Finally, I introduce the Pluriverse of Nursologies (PoN) as a meta‐theoretical paradigm for theory and knowledge development that decentres and dismantles the pyramidal epistemology of colonial/modern nursing, and relinks diverse nursologies from marginalised communities to the centre of intellectual nursing discourse, thereby revitalising the theoretical landscape of the discipline.